Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. I refer the minister to briefing notes provided to the APEC finance ministers meeting in Coolum, which said about climate change:

To complement market-based mechanisms, there is also a role for regulation and direct government intervention to assist in the development of low-emission technologies.

Don’t leading business groups support this view? Hasn’t the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change expressed support for policies that actively encourage the development of renewable energy technologies? Why is the Howard government ignoring business by calling for state-based targets to be abolished and why is the government refusing to increase the mandatory renewable energy target from the current pathetic two per cent level?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reason for the request for the states to abolish their mandatory targets is because that is what the Prime Minister’s task force actually recommended. Businesses would prefer there to be one target for all of Australia rather than all of the various state targets, which are a bit of a mishmash. Most people who are concerned about industry are concerned that there be one agreed target right around Australia. Otherwise, if you happen to have an aluminium smelter, let’s say in Tasmania, you might have to pay more for energy than if you have an aluminium smelter in Queensland, simply on the basis of the targets. So it makes good sense. But the government has said time and time again that things such as mandatory renewable energy targets have their purpose. Indeed, we introduced them and I think that they have served a very useful purpose.

In relation to regulations, today the Senate will be debating legislation requiring reporting conditions on particular businesses above a certain threshold. All of those factors which the senator is referring to are factors that we have taken into account, have dealt with or are dealing with in a comprehensive way and which, in fact, have the backing of the Prime Minister’s emissions task force. With great respect to the senator, the emission’s task force brought together the best brains available to us in this area and that is why the government is being very heavily influenced by the task force’s advice, rather than the stunt-a-day from the likes of Mr Garrett, who one day said he would close down our coalmines and kick 36,000 people out of work. When asked, ‘What about the jobs?’ he said, ‘That is hypothetical’, as though coalmining jobs are somehow hypothetical. They are real jobs sustaining thousands of families and hundreds of communities around Australia.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What happens to coalmining jobs when you use nuclear?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The arrogant Leader of the Opposition in the Senate continues his interjections. As soon as one of his senators gets into trouble we get this arrogant barrage. What I would say to the senator, who is actually listening to my answer, unlike you, Senator Evans—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I always listen to you, Eric!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, am I going to get a chance to address Senator Wortley’s question without the ongoing arrogant barrage of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Continue with your answer.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I am suggesting to Senator Wortley, and the few like her on the opposition side who might actually be interested in this topic, is that she should read the emissions task force report. I have a copy available in my office and she would find that it sets out a blueprint that will be in this nation’s interest for many years to come.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that renewable energy under the Howard government will decline as a proportion of electricity consumption over the next decade? Does the minister consider the decline in renewable energy to be a successful outcome? Doesn’t this in fact show that, after 11 long years in office, the Howard government is still not serious about climate change?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The one thing that I liked about the senator’s question was the suggestion that in the next 10 years of the Howard government there might be a particular decline in renewable energy. I hope that the first part of the question is right: that we will see another ten years of the Howard government, but I also hope that renewable energy will continue to increase. That is why initiatives such as in the senator’s neighbouring state of Victoria of Solar Cities are so very important. That is something that the Labor senators opposite do not want to hear about, but I can tell them and advise them that their own state Labor government in Victoria wants to know about it because they have partnered with us in this very important initiative. What I would invite the senator to do, if she can still hear my answer above the arrogance of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—(Time expired)